ABC Orders Pilot For Superhero Sitcom NO HEROICS!!

I am – Hercules!!
ABC has greenlighted a pilot for “No Heroics,” based on a British sitcom about a bar catering to superheroes.
Writer-producer Jeff Greenstein (“Will & Grace,” “Desperate Housewives”) is crafting the script with Drew Pearce, who created the ITV2 version:
Find all of the Hollywood Reporter’s story on the matter here.

Better than Hyperdrive. Not as good as early Red Dwarf seasons.
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Remember the live-action The Tick series that went for like 8 or 9 episodes. Sort of like that, but British pub humour.
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It also contains one of the funniest last lines I've heard in an episode. I'll just say ass and superpower involving fusion.

Is one of my most favorite canceled shows. Its too bad it was taken off the air so quickly. I think I might have to give this a shot. I hope the British humor translates (Yeah I know its in English, you know what I mean) well here in America.

I've been thinking about this a lot. its was a great movie. it's prime for a re-imaging and rewrite. there's plenty of sequel potential. but the added bonus is the gaming tie-in possibilities. make it happen execs. with star trek leading the revival, space is back in. superheroes, not so much.

Like Life on Mars, part of this show's appeal was the swearing and sexual references which will probably have to be removed from this version. Still, if the original writer is involved it should hopefully retain a lot of the original's ideas.

Too much! Zeitgeist overload. It's worrying that popular culture is suffering from a cancerous me-too-ism. It doesn't seem like there's enough invention to keep things fresh. It'll work itself out, but will it involve people like me complaining about how unoriginal everything is for the next 50 years?

These days, goes something like this: WRITER: I've got a great new idea for a show- EXEC: What else do you have? WRITER: Well, I also thought of a really unique- EXEC: What else? WRITER: Um, well, someone suggested to me the other day possibly remaking a show from- EXEC: Oooh! Tell me more!

A very enjoyable series.. It was better than it was bad. Loved Thunder Monkey - possibly the best (worst) superhero special ability ever.. Can call an army of Monkeys, but they take about 2 hours to come... Laughed my arse off... (and the further 'they now live a bit closer so they'll be here in 10')... Definitely worth watching - and if ABC can do a 'Office' on it, producing a funnier, longer running series, you Americans may be in for a treat.... (or, it may be shit without the swearing and the sex, in which case, back to Heroes (gulp))....

This has potential; having seen ITV's original 6-episode series, I have to say that it's really about the type of "heroes" that inhabit Dr. Horrible's world. The heroes are self-involved oblivious wankers who care more about their image than doing actual good. Like Captain Hammer, who at this point we all love to hate, the heroes in No Heroics are useless to society. I believe that elimination of profanity will not hurt this show, and going for a full 22-episode american season will allow for excellent extended storytelling.

My working title was "No heroes, but super" and it was about three guys who woke up one night in a morgue, had no idea who they were or why they were there, but soon found out that they got unbelievable silly superhero powers. Every few episode they should dscover one more power, each one at first more more useless than the last one, like setting your own piss on fire, making TV remotes fly, being able to talk to other people's hair and shit like that. And of course they tried to find out who they were and what's up with these powers.<br>
Maybe I should try to find a talented artist and make a comic book out of it or something.

I watch all kinds of tv, including many british comedies, and I gave this show 3 eps but just never laughed. The concept is good, but execution was poor. I dont even see how it could be funnier if were to be americanized

Americanized version. <p> <p>Thunder Monkey's monkey's will actually show up and throw peanuts and beer around the bar <p> <p>Timebomb will still be gay but no jokes will be made about it because that is insensitive to homosexuals. <p> <p> Timebomb will not be a sadistic killer because that would again be offensive to the poor sensitive public. <p> <p>She-Force will be a petit adorable young hottie because it's much better when the super strong one is tiny. <p> <p>Basically they will gut each of the characters and turn them into some bland non offensive version. <p> <p>Except for The Hotness whose character will be identical but will be played by a Steve Carell wannabe.

but the idea has far more potential. So ...despite the cliffhanger i'm more interested in this remake than in season 2 of the british show.
HBO, Showtime or F/X would have been a better fit of course. Network standarts will water it down.

Because it was produced by ABC. NBC didn't want to continue paying licensing fees to ABC to run their show, especially when additional episodes only benefits ABC's syndication prospects for the show. So it made sense for ABC to continue it in order to add more episodes to the total count.

I was somewhat underwhelmed by the delivery of these British actors. Hopefully the American one will be funnier. But didn't we already have a live-action show like this...The Tick. It lasted only a couple of episodes but the premise seems pretty much identical, superheroes in their off hours when they're not fighting crime. I believe there was even an episode when Arthur went to therapy.

Far and away the worst so-called "comedy" I've seen in a VERY long time. Yes, Calire Keelan is hot - but her character was just a whingeing bitch. The Hotness was the most ineffectual twat who ever lived. Don, the only funny-ish character in there. She-Force - typical fat girl stereotype. The villain, whoever he was - basically a superpowered yuppie. His character would have been HEEEEEEEE-LAAARIOUS in, oh I dunno, 1985?<P>
Godawful. I have no fucking clue how this shit got made into an actual series, but there is no way on God's green Earth the Yanks can possibly make this worse than it already was.<P>
No, not even if McG made it. Incidentally, he didn't see it happen :p

Because the only good thing in THAT is Kaley Cuoco. Loved the WoW episode! And let's face it - for a show that's meant to be about hetero men who can't deal with women because they're too nerdy to know where to start, it seems blindingly obvious that the reason the leads in that show can't get women is because they are ALL GAY. Especially the basketball-headed dweeb with the receding hairline and the Green Lantern / Flash T-shirts.<P>
Obviously there's nothing wrong with them being gay blah blah blah, but if you're going to make a comedy about guys who can't get girls becuase they're too nerdy and uncool, try not to make the guys as gay as possible. That way, it looks like it doesn't MATTER whether or not they get the girls, and poor Lakey Cuoco is acting her ass off for no good fucking reason whatsoever.<P>
US BIG BANG THEORY = UK NO HEROICS. Great idea, could not be executed ANY FUCKING WORSE.

...wasn't as funny as the trailers, we're in trouble because what I see here is pure shit.
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Now if they want to give us a character in this named Mr. Fawlty, I'm in! Especially if he can be portrayed by the late Harvey Coreman or Bea Arthur...

about Big Bang Theory. This show is fucking awful and the male leads really play their parts like over the top cliche-homosexuals. The only good thing about that crap show is that it delivers HIMYM a good lead in.

didn't find it very funny (other than parts with TB & MT). The set-up was good but the follow through wasn't (although there were some funny throw away bits). I would say that maybe the the remake could be better but the only two really good characters - Timebomb and Monkey Thunder - will have to be watered down for US primetime. I hope I'm wrong because I really wanted to like the show. Has the BBC commissioned a second (hopefully funnier) series?

Watching all these boring heroes’ episodes really makes me want an X-men series/TV show. I'm not really sure what is stopping Marvel from doing an excellent show such as this one. The wealth of good ideas from the comics could surely create a successful TV show that could run for at least 15 seasons. Clearly, they have the technology and budget now. Season one: Have Professor X start the X-men with the original five. By season 3 or 4, they could be in serious danger, so they introduce the much anticipated Logan. I could go on and on from all the awesome plots they could get out of those comics. They could grab the viewer’s attention by slowly unraveling the story and slowly spacing out the introduction of characters. I just don't understand why it is taking so freakin' long to get this show made. You just can't fit the whole thing in a 2 hour movie. What do you think?

"No Heroics" was nearly unwatchable, as was the live-action "The Tick." Now, as far as superhero spoof goes, I would urge everyone to find and read the early "The Tick" comics. Also, I recently watched several episodes of the animated "Tick," and found that I enjoyed it just as much as I did when I was a kid - maybe more so.

Superheroes are inherently campy. It's always been that way all the way back to 60s Batman. There is nothing novel about making fun of superheroes. It's more work to actually KEEP you from laughing at guys in costumes.

An average joe, set in the DC universe, becomes a masked hero to pay the bills. He is unemployeed and bored so he becomes a vigilante beacause he can get tips. But when he is offered a high paying job, he wants to quit, but can't because he has arch-villians after him, a police chief that calls on him to do the dirty work and a girlfriend that only likes the "hero" version of him. STEAL THE IDEA AND MAKE IT SO.

Not sure if it was a result of the budget, or the key conceit from outset, but key to the whole No Heroics premise is use of superpowers is pretty marginal to the stories.<p>Main conceit is that they are not allowed to use powers in the pub where most of the interactions occur. <p> This means it is almost a clone of "How I met your mother" - four moderately dissatisfied 30-somethings, including two who had a previous relationship gone bad, chewing over their life and recent experiences <p> Their successes or not as heroes map pretty much exactly to standard sit-com discussions about how things are going the office (including office rivalries with a successful loathsome egomaniac executive), with added elements of being a minor celebrity
<p>Most TV superhero shows rely on a big display of powers 5 mins before the end to round off the show. Here the powers are for comic or deflationary effect or an off-screen plot device, which could frustrate people if not compensated for by the plots and characters<p>
So, pretty much normal people whose worries and triumphs play out on a faintly ridiculous backdrop (and they are quite aware that their superheroism is a bit pathetic, like many people know their "normal" office jobs are a waste of time)
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The UK version played it "adult", with lots of gratuitous sex references and insults (in part to mask lack of situational humour and heart), which is entirely unnecessary for a US remake.
<p> The remake could flesh out the "joke" characters of Sheforce and Timebomb a little (otherwise it's pure Will and Grace territory), and look a lot more at the interaction between heroes and villans (the prison visit by Sheforce to a villain who obviously got off on being trounced was good, the timebomb torture scene where the villain was worried about being let go without some sort of battlescars, too).
<p> Biggest danger would be blanding Electroclash into a Jennifer Aniston and The Hotness into a David Schwimmer.
<p>The white collar/blue collar hero element would be interesting, too.
<p>very easy to turn into a big old mess by getting the balance wrong <p> ABC, if you're watching - it's not actually about superheroes, it's about struggling, but essentially good-hearted losers who have to put on a big front all the time.